Kilgour, David

***A reissue of David Kilgour’s A Feather in the Engine, remastered and pressed on vinyl for the very first time. Originally released in 2002, A Feather in the Engine followed two full-band efforts—1997’s David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights and The Clean’s 2001 album Getaway—and is thus almost startling in its intimacy. Recorded at home and mostly alone (The Verlaines’ Graeme Downes provides lush string arrangements), Kilgour once called A Feather in the Engine “the most solo LP I’ve made.” Interpolating his genius for guitar pop through acoustic guitars and gorgeous instrumentals, its melodies unfold gently, suggesting that the 13 songs here, written over the course of four years, were searching Kilgour as much as he was searching them. The dichotomy between A Feather in the Engine’s pop songs and instrumentals fascinates the ear, drawing the listener closer and closer to Kilgour’s virtuosic guitar playing when his lyrics aren’t imparting his breezy charm. The depth of style he achieves is daunting; listening to it now, every song feels capable of generating a dozen playlists, or like the spawning point of a new microgenre.